• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

Use PowerPC for a week?

Elfen

Well-known member
I use my 3 G4 iBooks (2), PowerBook (1) and my G4 Tower for everything everyday since I acquired them long ago. I do have a iMac Intel Mini but do not have a working PSU for it.

So if this was a contest, I won.

 

Schmoburger

Well-known member
For what it is worth you likely will not hate the experience as much as you might expect if you play your cards right with the initial setup... I actually go out of my way to use the 9600 for a lot of things, simply because I can, and there is period or even current software available that does most things I want it to fairly quickly and efficiently. With a later machine you have a lot more in the way of system resources to play with, and with most older G4 machines you have the option of using Mac OS 9 which can actually streamline things quite a bit.

 

Schmoburger

Well-known member
9.2.2 should fly along beautifully on the 1.0 Ti... not entirely sure about Leopard's performance however. I know as much as it will run, however it may be a little painful as I don't beleive the Ti runs a hugely powerful graphics controller. It would help to turn off some of the UI graphics effects to speed it up a little. Bear in mind that leopard does not support Classic mode, so you must actually boot into OS9 entirely to use it. :)

 

tanuki65

Well-known member
Yes, advantage of a TiBook! Also, 100GB is overkill for OS 9, but just enough for Leopard. *And* I can run my library of old Mac software (1983/4-1999 I think, maybe later than '99) on a blazing fast G4 chip (emulating a 68LC040). It'd be funny to run MacWrite on a Quad 2.5GHz G5!

 

uniserver

Well-known member
i would think,  shouldn't be too hard on leopard.     heck i still have a Dual CPU atom box around here some where that is still running OSX86 Leopard.

now mac os 8.1 that might be more fun.   :)

 

tanuki65

Well-known member
8.1 won't run on a TiBook. Maybe someday OS 9 though :) I do 1080p video editing though. Maybe one of those G5 OS 9 hacks.

 

tanuki65

Well-known member
Plans have changed. I am not going with a TiBook, but an Aluminium PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz. I am getting an 80GB hard drive for it. (Total: US$60)

Is 1GB RAM sufficient or should I get an extra gig?

Edit: 1GB from OWC would cost US$14.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

tanuki65

Well-known member
OK!

Edit: Total: US$75-ish. Can probably be offset by selling some stuff (like my iBook G3).

Also, does Apple's USB SuperDrive/MacBook Air SuperDrive work with OS X Leopard on a G4?

Edit 2: Should I take the challenge for 3 weeks or a month?

 
Last edited by a moderator:

TheWhiteFalcon

Well-known member
It doesn't. The USB SuperDrive requires a modern Mac without an internal SuperDrive, it takes more power from the USB ports.

  • MacBook Pro with Retina display
  • MacBook Air
  • iMac (late 2012) and later
  • Mac mini (late 2009) and later
  • Mac Pro (late 2013)
 

tanuki65

Well-known member
Would a standard PC mini-USB drive work if I used a mini-USB to 2 USB ports cable?

Edit: Would a powered hub help? I can't find the cable.

Edit 2: The model I'm getting has USB 2.0

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
If you haven't already bought a TiBook, don't. They're very pretty, but they're a pain to take apart and maintain and they're quite physically unreliable. I also never found them to be faster at Mac OS 9 (or really, even at OS X) than the PowerBook G3. The one exception is if I created a really huge scene in a 3d rendering app, but even then, that's the kind of thing that if you can swing it, you should do on some kind of desktop anyway.

Also, if you need an optical drive for a PPC Mac, spend the money on a firewire one. It's not easy or convenient to boot from a USB optical drive on a PPC Mac, even if they work for other tasks.

In terms of OS X as "retrochallenge:" *yawn*

One of the things that has bothered me about Mac OS X on late PowerPC hardware for a really long time (before I became aware of the security concerns (please dont' reply to those insanely old threads)) is that it's not really that different from Mac OS X on Intel-based hardware, and to be honest, I really don't think it's a very big challenge.

Yeah, you're dealing with the fact that PPC hardware is slow and insufficient for the absolute dog that is Mac OS X, and that it also happens to be poorly supported by slimmer, more efficient, and better operating systems, such as Linux and BSD.

To me, a real "retrochallenge" (and even this isn't very exciting) would be to go all the way back to Mac OS 9 (preferably on a G3 of some sort, but that's a personal preference) or to a really early PowerPC computer, something that won't even run Mac OS 9 very well.

The first retrochallenge had a single simple rule: ten years or older. Unfortunately today that means I could put Windows 8.1U1 on a Pentium 4 and just do all the things I do now, on a bigger and louder computer, slightly slower computer.

The current retrochallenge stuff (which seems to focus less on Macs, in part because fewer Mac users are interested in it) is focused a lot more on doing creative things with old computers, and it appears that most people believe the "endurance" challenge to be pretty boring.

 

tanuki65

Well-known member
A 15" PowerBook G4 (1.5GHz, 2GB RAM, 40GB HDD) has been ordered! I also ordered an 80GB Western Digital 9.5mm 2.5" IDE hard drive, which I will upgrade it with.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

VMSZealot

Well-known member
Really not much of a challenge.  I did just this (involuntarily) last month, and it really wasn't too painful.  My Retina MacBook died (the backlight would come on, the fans would spin up, it got hot, but other than that it did nothing) so I took it to Apple for repair.  That took a week.  Given that I've given my Air to my wife, and my BlackBook to my mother, I needed a notebook for work. That left only my old 667MHz TiBook, chipped paint, dents and all.  It started first time - and, after a few hours plugged into the mains, it even retained a charge. 

Sure, it was a little slow - but I was able to load my core work tools (Safari, BBEdit, Microsoft Office, Xcode (in a limited fashion) and iTunes for Music).  I had to wait until the Retina was back before doing any Windows compiles - but other than that it was fine.  

I'm kind of used to these shenanigans anyway because I use my SE/30 for preference for text editing and even some shell scripting (woo! A/UX!).  I find the little 9" screen very work-friendly.  It's so small that there is absolutely no temptation whatsoever to load distractions into other windows.  Just the one work window, no messing.

 
Top